LED car lighting or "no big bright"

A senior executive of Guangzhou Fo Da Signal Equipment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Guangzhou Fo Da”) recently revealed that LED lights have encountered an unprecedented dilemma as the global economic situation continues to slump and the auto market is sluggish. “The sales of LED lights this year have fallen a lot from last year.”

According to the survey, only some mid- to high-end models use LED lighting. "The cost of LED lights is two or three times that of traditional lights. Some models that go low-end and close to the people, such as Chery QQ, have a profit of 100 yuan. It is not realistic for them to use higher-priced LED lights. "Related people in the industry said.

The market base has become bigger and the auto market is sluggish

Since 2008, a series of stimulating automobile consumption policies introduced by the country have rapidly boosted the demand for automobiles. In 2009 and 2010, China's automobile sales growth rate reached 46% and 32% respectively. However, excessive pre-consumption consumes a large amount of potential purchasing power. Since 2011, the domestic auto market has once again fallen into a downturn.

Affected by the inertia of the market last year, this year, the production and sales of the national auto market continued to be weak. According to the latest statistics of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the production and sales volume of passenger cars in the mainland from January to May was 6,340,700 and 63,333,000 respectively. The output increased by 7.05% year-on-year, and the sales volume increased by 5.48% year-on-year. Further increase.

"According to relevant market forecasts, the growth rate of car sales in 2012 will drop by 5%-10%. The growth of auto parts market such as car lights is changing with the changes in the car sales market. The downturn in the car market also means the car lamp market. The recession will continue for some time.” Huang Hefa said that he expects the domestic car lamp market to grow at a rate of around 5% this year, including traditional car lights and LED lights.

On June 13, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the announcement of "2012 Old Vehicles Retirement Renewal Subsidy Vehicles and Subsidy Standards". This move has also been interpreted by all parties as a precursor to the old-for-new subsidy before the introduction of a new round of automobile stimulus policies.

Although favorable policies can play a role in boosting the auto market, relevant experts believe that this does not mean that the auto market will have a sharp increase two years ago. "Because the market base has become larger, the relevant policies have been introduced again to stimulate the market. The effect will definitely show up, but it will not rise sharply."

"In the short term, LED lights can't replace traditional lights to become mainstream." Huang Hefa said that there will be no large-scale explosion in the market, and the growth of LED lights is expected to replace traditional lights. However, from the perspective of the domestic market, the penetration rate of LED lights is not ideal. Take Xingyu Optoelectronics as an example. In 2011, the revenue of headlights was 984 million yuan, of which LED lamps accounted for less than 10%.

LED headlights have low penetration

According to relevant data, in 2011, automotive LED external lighting revenue was 520 million US dollars, automotive LED interior lighting revenue was 660 million US dollars, global lamp market size reached 14.9 billion US dollars, LED lamp penetration rate was only 7.9%.

"For car manufacturers, the use of LED lighting is only a sales point, because LED energy saving, environmental protection, long life." The person in charge of the above-mentioned car manufacturer said, "If the car is equipped with LED lighting, it is equivalent to the high-end label. ."

"The cost of LED lights is two to three times that of traditional lights. If the other costs of the cars are similar, the cost of the lights is more, consumers are not happy. So LED lights are still only used in some. High-end models." Huang Hefa said.

“The headlights are the biggest potential market for LED lighting in the future. The price of an LED headlight varies from 5,000 yuan to 15,000 yuan, and the maximum profit can reach 200%. Therefore, 1 billion in the LED headlamp market is An easy task," said Guangzhou Foda executives. However, he also said that the headlights will take a long time for large-scale applications due to high-power cooling technology problems.

The industry believes that the current LED headlight penetration rate is still relatively low. LED headlamps are the highest-end applications of LEDs in the field of automotive lights, and their segmentation industry is still in its infancy in the international arena. At present, only the top models of the Audi A8L and Buick LaCrosse are equipped with LED headlamps.

Different from the LED lighting market, the LED lamp market has very good standards, and there are also restrictions on entry barriers. Compared with other market segments, the LED lamp market is relatively standardized. "But the essence of merchants is profit-seeking. The average net profit margin of LED lights can reach 20%. In the past two years, the number of companies entering the LED lamp market has increased and the competition will become more and more fierce." The person in charge of the company disclosed.

Obviously, it is not easy for LED lighting companies to take a share in the lamp market. According to industry insiders, the domestic car lamp matching market belongs to the non-compact market, and the matching of car lamp products is mainly supported by the system with the benefit sharing relationship.

For example, the headlights of Guangzhou Honda Automobile are produced by Guangzhou Stanley Electric Co., Ltd., and the headlights of Beijing Hyundai Motor are produced by Beijing Hyundai Sanli Auto Co., Ltd., and the headlights of Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motors are zero by Jiangsu MOBIS. The headlight factory of Parts Co., Ltd. is supporting production. Shanghai Volkswagen and Shanghai GM are supplied by Shanghai Xiaohao Auto Lamp Co., Ltd. It is quite difficult for domestic car companies to enter the supporting supply chain of these car manufacturers.

"Most of the domestic automakers are in the background of state-owned enterprises, and they are not bad at all. They want to do everything at the same time. Therefore, they will provide parts and lanterns and other components for their cars in the form of joint ventures or sharing of benefits." The person in charge of the above-mentioned Shenzhen car lamp company said that it is difficult for LED lighting companies to cut into the LED lamp front-loading market in the short term.

At present, many private car companies such as Chery and Geely in China have adopted the mode of bidding and purchasing from a number of car-light enterprises, which provides a certain space for the survival and development of domestic car companies.

However, LED lighting companies still face many obstacles in entering the market. "LED lighting and lights belong to two different industries, production systems and standard systems are not the same, LED lighting companies will certainly be lacking. Secondly, LED lights have very high requirements for anti-shock and heat dissipation, LED lighting companies The products produced are difficult to meet the requirements of the vehicle manufacturer standard in terms of stability and safety in a short period of time.” The person in charge said that it takes a certain amount of time for domestic LED lighting companies to cut into the lamp supply chain.

At the same time, Guangzhou Foda executives also said that, like the early development of LED lighting, in the field of LED lights, the technical level of domestic local lamp companies is still different from that of foreign car companies. At present, high-end LED lights are mainly from Japanese, American and European companies.